


Never Christmas

by WearingOutWinter



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Frozen (2013)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, author is of the devil's party and knows it, description of violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-07 19:44:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WearingOutWinter/pseuds/WearingOutWinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two queens of winter, and the two women who follow them. It's more complicated than you might think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ladies in Waiting

The ship arrived with the dawn, its swan-shaped figurehead curiously out of place amongst the fishing fleet that usually crowded the Arendelle harbor. Elsa and Anna were both there on the dock, to greet the arrival of a queen from such a distant land. But after the formal meetings were done, and their majesties Elsa and Jadis had retired to some private chamber to discuss the trade agreement or the alliance or whatever screamingly boring thing heads of state had to talk about, Anna was left alone. 

Or almost alone, because when she wandered back to the docks, to take another look at the strange and beautiful ship, she found someone already there. A girl, a little older than herself, with straight dark hair and wide dark eyes. 

"Hi," the Princess of Arendelle chirped. "I'm Anna!"

The dark-haired girl started, looking away from the gentle waves and the green cliffs that climbed away on every side. 

"Susan," she said quietly, extending a hand. 

Anna took it enthusiastically. 

"Oh, right! You were with the queen. The other queen, I mean. I guess you got locked out of the important stuff too, huh?"

"You could say that." Susan smiled wanly. "I have been in Her Majesty's company for quite some time now, but sometimes... sometimes I think she still doesn't trust me."

She sounded sad, or maybe angry, and Anna blinked. 

"Maybe she just doesn't want to you to die of boredom."

Susan laughed at that, briefly but fully. 

"I hope so." Her face grew somber again. "After all, after everything I have done, everything I have sacrificed..." She shook her head. "But we should talk of happier things."

"Hmm... okay!" Anna smiled. "How about you tell me about where you're from? 'Cause, I don't think I've ever heard of it before. And it's a little weird to only hear about a kingdom when the queen shows up."

Susan laughed again.

"It is quite far from here. And, no doubt, our two kingdoms might have continued on in happy ignorance of each other. But when Jadis heard about your sister's powers, she became quite interested." She shrugged. "She has always had a great kinship with winter."

"I see," Anna said, even if she didn't, really. 

Their conversation was interrupted by a gust of wind from over the harbor, cold and flecked with salt. Anna barely blinked, but Susan shivered, and clutched her cloak tight around her shoulders. The action drew Anna's attention to the garment, and she stared. 

The cloak was of a beautiful golden-tan color, furred and luxurious. The clasp that fastened it about Susan's shoulders was a single jet-black stone, and the fur collar billowed about her head like a mane. 

"That's amazing," Anna breathed, and blushed when Susan looked at her oddly. "I mean," she said, "I've never seen anything like it. What kind of fur  _is_ that?"

Susan ran her hand over the collar, catching the fine hairs between her fingers. 

"It's lion," she said at last. "Jadis gave it to me." 

 

 


	2. Chilly Reception

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> I'd like to thank everyone who offered feedback on the first part of this fic, and convinced me it was a good idea to continue it. After entirely too much hemming and hawing, here's chapter two, giving Elsa and the White Witch herself some time in the sun. Enjoy!

Jadis swept into the room without sparing so much as a glance for the liveried servants on either side of the doors. Elsa gave them each (Joseph and... Emma? She thought it was Emma) a nod, then stepped into the smallest of the castle's council chambers as the doors swung shut with a small click. The queen of Arendelle stood for a moment, studying the other monarch as she stepped regally to the far side of the ornate round table. Jadis stood a full head taller than Elsa, and her hair was black, her skin was pale, and her lips were red as sin. She moved like a queen, too, with the easy assumption of authority, of power, absolute and unquestionable, that Elsa herself still struggled to find. It was intimidating as anything, but Elsa remembered that this was her place: her castle, her land, her _kingdom_ , and allowed herself no more than a small smile as she said

“Please, take a seat, Your Majesty. And allow me to welcome you, again, to Arendelle. If there is anything I can do to make your stay more comfortable, please, let me know.”

On the far side of the table, Jadis inclined her head.

“I...” She paused, seemed to falter. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I am sure your hospitality will be everything that we could wish for.”

Elsa nodded in her turn, and took her seat on the near side of the table. The room was decorated as she was dressed, in the forest greens and royal purples of Arendelle, and Jadis looked out of place in her dress and coat of purest white. It was no more than could be expected, nothing more than a small chromatic reminder of the reality all about them, but Elsa took strength from it.

 

“Well then,” she said, pleasantly, “perhaps you can tell what brings you to my shores. Arendelle has no trade with Narnia—though that will change soon, I hope—and I'm afraid I cannot recall so much as seeing your country on a map.”

“It is...” And again Jadis hesitated. “Far from here. Not among the local spheres, I am sure. If it were not for current troubles, I would not feel the need to put in an appearance. As it is...”

She spread her hands. Her nails were unpainted, Elsa noticed, torn and ragged instead of trimmed smooth.

“I am left without options.”

“Indeed?”

Elsa arched an eyebrow. It was a calculated gesture, as everything had to be when dealing with another crown, but her surprise was genuine. For all that Jadis all but dripped royal disdain, she didn't seem to be very good at talking like a queen. Or at least, at talking like a queen to an equal. That was worth remembering.

“Well, if there is anything Arendelle can do ease your worries, by all means, tell me.”

Jadis sighed through her nose. It was a short, honest, and above all unexpected gesture, and Elsa's eyebrow inched a fraction higher.

“That is why I am here.”

Jadis placed her hands flat upon the table, and seemed to gather herself.

“From the beginning,” she said, slowly, “my reign has been plagued by disloyalty. Rebellion. Your subjects love you, Arendelle, but I... I am not so fortunate.”

Elsa concealed her surprise at being addressed by the name of her realm. It was an old habit—not unheard of, but a few centuries out of fashion, at the least.

“Well then... Narnia. Perhaps you can tell me what aid Arendelle can be in such troubled times. We are not a large nation, and I will not send my citizens off to war in lands they have never heard of, but--”

“It is not soldiers that I require.” Jadis's voice was only just shy of a snap. “Nor even supplies. Narnia has been fed throughout my reign, despite what my enemies might say.”

Elsa said nothing, merely nodding her assent. As much as conversation with another monarch might be a dance of power, it wasn't her intention to either cow or offend Jadis.

“Rebellion is nothing new to me,” Jadis said, resting her chin in her palm and drumming her fingers on her cheek. “But recently, the status quo was changed. My old adversary, the challenger to my rule, revealed himself to me at last, and brought four lieutenants with him. One of those lieutenants, however, forsook his banners for my own, and this proved his undoing.”

For the first time, Jadis smiled. It was not, as Elsa expected, a particularly cold expression. It was broad, and bright, and by all appearances genuine. But it was also, the young queen noted, extremely full of teeth. It was a predator's smile, she decided: learned from a wolf, or perhaps a shark.

“He always did underestimate our sex, Arendelle. I was quite pleased when that particular failing was the one that finally did him in.”

Jadis's eyes were unfocused, staring into the middle distance. Definitely a shark.

“Were you?”

Elsa faked a cough, and poured herself a glass of water from the carafe waiting at her elbow. She offered a second to the queen across the table. Jadis accepted it, and shook herself free from her reverie.

“Indeed. But, against all my expectations, my enemy's army outlived him. It is camped still in the hills, under the three lieutenants that remain, still a challenge—a threat—to my rule.”

“I see.” Elsa frowned. “But I believe you said it was not soldiers that you needed?”

“No.” Jadis shook her head. “The strength of my forces is not in doubt. If I so wished, I could sweep these rebels from their camps and drive them to rout. Few would survive. Fewer still would ever bear arms against me again.”

“But you do not wish too.”

Elsa's voice was quiet, but there was no question in it.

“No,” Jadis sighed. “No, I do not. Concerns other than mine prevent such a... simple approach.”

“Then tell me, Narnia, what would you have me do?”

Jadis set down her glass, laying her hands on the table and curling her fingers into fists before relaxing them again. When she spoke, it was as if the words being drawn out of her throat against her will.

“I need your help, Arendelle. Not your land's, not your people's, yours. For many years, I used my power to control those who hated me. Snow and cold and the threat—never the reality, but the threat—of hunger were better police than any other I could manage. But now... it is no longer enough.”

Elsa blinked, a genuine expression slipping through her regal mask.

“Your power...?”

“Yes, Arendelle. Power. Like yours. Not so focused, perhaps. Not so quick. But kin to yours, nevertheless.” Jadis flexed a hand, fingers crooked like claws. “I taught my enemies to fear winter. And, though it took them a great many years, they have mastered that fear. It is no longer sufficient. But if, when I returned to Narnia, I brought someone new with me. A new queen, who carried with her her own winter, then they might learn to fear again.”

Jadis's eyes were fixed on Elsa's, bright and hungry. The queen of Arendelle recoiled from the look, from the words, rocking her chair back on two legs.

“I do not know what you think I am, Narnia—” she began, but Jadis cut her off.

“I think you are a woman of power. And I think that your subjects' love of you is not because you wield that power, but because you restrain it. And I think that your strength sings in your veins, every day, every hour, begging to be released, but that you hold it at bay, because you are nearly as afraid of it as they are. And I offer you an opportunity to free yourself from all restraint, all fear, and indulge your instincts. In doing so, you would be saving a great many lives.”

“I see.”

Elsa stood, coldly, slipping her regal mask back into place. But putting that mask on was a difficult thing, and it was often stiffer when she had to do it quickly.

“I'm afraid I have other matters to attend to today, Your Majesty. I will consider your proposal.”

Jadis stood as well, expression sour.

“We will speak of this again?”

Elsa nodded, just a fraction.

“If we must.”

“Very well.”

Joseph and Probably Emma swung the doors open for Jadis as the queen of Narnia stalked down the hallway and away. Elsa followed a few steps behind, fingers curled into fists, nails biting into her palms, as a gentle shower of snow snuffed out the candles in the council chamber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, no one ever said being queen was easy. Stay tuned for chapter three, which will be about Anna and Susan again, and feature Susan's slightly morbid idea of leisure activity.


	3. She Can Kill You From Two Hundred Yards Away With These

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Susan speaks her piece (at some length) and Anna listens. Tags will be updated to keep up with developments in the story, so caveat lector, and all that. Happy reading!

After the conversation on the docks, Susan looked rather adrift, so Anna offered to show the lion-cloaked young woman around the palace and the town.

“Thank you,” Susan replied with a nod. “But do you think you could show me the wilderness instead? It's been too long since I practiced my shooting.”

“Oh, sure.” Anna nodded. “You're a marksman? Er... markswoman, I mean?”

Susan gave a small smile.

“An archer. Give me a moment to get my things.”

She moved with unexpected energy up the gangplank of the ship with the swan-shaped figurehead, and returned a few minutes later, holding a bow of dark-stained wood nearly as tall as herself. Slung on her right hip was a quiver, full of arrows fletched with grey goose feathers. As she stood once more in front of Anna, she tugged on her cloak, pulling the golden fur more securely over her shoulders.

“Well then,” Susan said, and it seemed to Anna that she stood a little taller. “Shall we?”

Anna led Susan up into the hills, following a stream that still threatened to over-spill its banks with the snowmelt, under trees covered in the first buds of spring.

“You know, Elsa was worried, after what happened last summer.” Anna said, conversationally. “She thought it might mean a late spring. Or no spring at all. But,” and she paused to take in the young green all around them, “I think it's a little earlier this year, if anything.”

Susan nodded, her bow still clutched in her left hand.

“It's beautiful,” she said. “But quite empty. If there was snow everywhere, I could imagine I was back in Narnia.”

Anna blinked. “You expected something different?”

“Villages. Farms.” Susan shrugged. “Something like that. Narnians don't go in for things like that, but here I was expecting more signs of... humanity.”

“Oh.” Anna nodded. “I know what you mean. Well, this is the way to the northern mountain. The ice men keep few camps up there, and Oaken does a lot of trade with them, but most of the farms are further south. Fewer rocks in the ground, I guess.”

“Fair enough.” Susan laughed. “I applaud you for being so familiar with your peoples' habits, Anna.”

“I guess Elsa is rubbing off on me.” Anna tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and laughed, a little self-consciously.

 

“You're close to your sister, then?”

“Yeah.” Anna beamed. “Not always, but after last summer... yeah.”

“Then I am happy for you.”

Susan's words for simple, but her voice sounded sad to Anna.

“It's nice,” she said, slowly. “Do you have any sisters?”

“One. Younger than me. And two brothers, as well.” Susan sighed. “We were close once. Not anymore.”

“Oh.” Anna hesitated. “I'm sorry. What happened?”

Susan was silent for some time. The silent that stretched between the two young women was not, in fact, silent, and Anna occupied herself by listening to the trilling birdsong overhead as she waited for her companion to speak.

“Birthright,” Susan said at last. “Sons of Adam, my brothers were called. While my sister and I were the daughters of Eve. And you would not think that would make such a difference. After all, if there is any truth in it, then they must be sons of Eve. As I must be a daughter of Adam. But when we it came to birthright... well, it was as if we were different species. They were heirs to all the earth, entitled to lordship over man and beast and the world entire. And my sister and me? We were due nothing but blame. For pain. For death. For the fall.”

Anna blinked, unsure of how to respond, and it took a moment to realize that Susan had stopped walking. They had just reached the crest of one of the many foothills of the northern mountain, mostly free of trees and looking out over a shallow valley. The stream glittered in the valley below, but Susan appeared to have eyes only for the equally clear hill beyond it.

“I think this will do nicely.”

She nodded once, and drew from her belt an oddly shaped glove of hard leather. As she pulled it over her left hand, fingers doing up the laces with practiced ease, she looked over her shoulder at Anna.

“Could you get an arrow out of my quiver for me? One with white string around the fletching, please.”

“Oh!” Anna blinked. “Oh, sure.”

Without hardly any fumbling at all, she selected an arrow whose feathers were held on with pure white twine, holding it ready while Susan finished donning her glove. Except, Anna realized as she watched, it was hardly a glove at all. It left her fingers exposed, but extended over her wrist about halfway to her elbow. She turned back to Anna, and plucked the arrow from the princess of Arendelle's fingers.

“Thank you,” Susan said, holding the arrow up to inspect the fletching. “This will do nicely.”

“Why did it have to be a white one?” Anna, still feeling a bit overwhelmed, blurted the question out.

Susan smiled. Or smirked, maybe. It was a smile that only seemed to reach half of her mouth.

“Because,” she said, slowly. “Because... an arrow is like a kiss.”

“What?”

Anna blinked, nonplussed.

Susan laughed. With her whole mouth, Anna noted with some relief.

“I mean you need different ones for different occasions. You wouldn't kiss your sister the same way you would a lover, would you?”

“W-what?” Anna was quite sure that, if she hadn't been standing still, she would have tripped and fallen headlong down the hill. “I—wait. I don't know. I guess not? I've never really thought about--”

Anna's jaw closed with a click. Fortunately, Susan seemed not to notice her almost total loss of composure. She was too interested in the arrow in her hand.

“This,” she said, holding it out so that Anna could inspect the dull, rounded arrowhead, “is a blunt. Good for target shooting across a yard, and not much else. Still, it'll do to find the range.”

Susan stepped away from Anna, shrugging her cloak over her right shoulder and letting lion's fur hang loose over her back. Then, she nocked the arrow Anna had selected against the string, sighted along it's length for an instant, and sent it humming away over the valley. Anna watched it trace a graceful arc across the sky before coming to rest in the grass just beyond the stream's further bank.

“That will do nicely,” Susan said, and plucked another arrow from her quiver. As she spun it in her fingers, Anna saw the string around its feathers were dark grey.

“Now this,” the archer said, showing Anna the arrow's tapered, needle-like point, “is a bodkin. Simple, easy to make. Works well enough against mail, but not against plate armor.”

Anna blinked. For some reason, she it had not occurred to her that Susan might pursue archery for any reason beyond her own interest in it as a hobby or a sport. The idea that she might have had to put her skills to violent use was... not disturbing, exactly, but odd. After all, Susan was the handmaiden or companion or _something_ to the queen of her country. And she had to take up the bow and arrow to defend herself and her queen? Anna shivered. Life in Narnia must be terribly exciting.

Anna's thoughts were interrupted by the slap of the bowstring against Susan's bracer, and the dark-haired girl nodded in satisfaction as her second arrow thudded into the ground not far from her first.

“Right. Time for the main event.”

The arrow that she selected then was marked with black string, and it's head was pointed in a way that Anna, up until a few minutes before, would have said that all arrows were. From it's point, it curved backwards, graceful lines of metal ending in two sharp barbs.

“Broadhead,” Susan said, with some satisfaction. “An archer's bread and butter. Mail or plate, wolf or bear, horse or bull—makes no difference at all. With enough of these, I can stop an army.”

She sent the arrow buzzing away over the valley, and as it went, she nodded to herself.

“That will do for accuracy. Time to work on speed.”

Then, her hands moving so fast Anna could scarcely follow them, she nocked and fire another arrow, and another, and another, taking not even a breath to aim, merely sending them on their way as quickly as she possibly could. When the fourth arrow left her string, and the first had not yet come to rest in the earth, Susan paused, breathing heavily.

“That,” she said, flexing the fingers of her right hand, “always feels good. But it gets tiring fast. Let's walk down and get those arrows back. It'll give me a chance to catch my breath.”

“Sure,” Anna chirped, and the two women began to make their way down the hill.

“Soooo...”

The princess of Arendelle drew out the word, hoping Susan might guess what she intended to say. But the Narnian girl merely turned towards her and quirked an eyebrow.

“Yes?”

“The way you talk about them—your arrows, I mean. It sounds like you know them well. Like you've had to use them before. So... what's it like?”

“Frightening.” Susan sighed. “And exhilarating, by turns. In battle, when two great armies are striving against one another... it's a great and terrible affair. The archers aren't picking targets, you understand, we're just marking ranges and dropping volley after volley on the enemy ranks. And there are others, in front of us, warriors with swords and spears for when things get... personal. But sometimes, those are not enough. Sometimes they are overcome, or they break and run. And then... then there is nothing between you and your enemy.”

The two women came to the stream, and Susan paused just long enough to leap lightly over the rushing water. When she and Anna both stood on the other side, the archer continued, voice quiet.

“And when you stand there, covered in sweat and fear, and you see him, really see him, for the first time... there is nothing in the world that can prepare you. Not when he comes rushing across the field, paws trampling over the dead and the dying. Not when you see the gore that mats his mane and drips from his jaws. Not when the only thing you can do is loose arrow after arrow, hoping, praying, that they will be enough to stop him. Because if they are not, if he makes it across that great emptiness that separates you from him... then you will die.”

Susan bent over the first arrow and jerked it from the earth, her movement as quick and sharp as if she were plucking it from her enemy's heart.

“But they were enough. And I did not die. But as I stood there, my last arrow nocked upon the string, and watched him crash to earth mid-leap, I understood something. I had thought that 'tame' meant safe. Or docile, maybe. But it doesn't. 'Tame' means 'capable of living with humans.' And they were right. He never was tame.” She shook her head. “Jadis knew that from the start, I think. But me? It took time. Jadis understood that, too. After all, it's why she gave me this cloak.”

Anna waited for a moment, to see if Susan meant to continue. The woman was like a frozen lake: calm and gentle on the surface, but crack that surface enough and the torrent that resulted just might sweep you away. When it became clear that the tide had subsided, at least for the moment, she spoke.

“I see.”

“No. You don't.” Susan turned towards the princess of Arendelle, smiling. “And how could you? Arendelle is a peaceful, sunny land. And if you never have to raise a hand in anger, then your life will be long and well-lived.”

“I punched my fiance off a boat after he tried to kill me,” Anna said, matter-of-factly. “And I hit some wolves with a burning bedroll once.”

Susan threw back her head and laughed, the peals of her mirth echoing off the hills.

“Well then,” she said as she retrieved her last arrow. “I was planning on doing a little more shooting, but let's return to the city instead. We can visit a tavern there, and we'll raise a glass: to brave women standing against the beasts of the world.”

Anna smiled. After everything that Susan had said, conjuring old wounds and visions from her strange and distant land, she had begun (without meaning to, really) to think of her as strange and distant herself. But when Susan laughed, standing there in the spring of Arendelle, with her lion's fur cloak about her shoulders and her bow in her hand, she remembered that the other woman was just that: a woman, neither more nor less.

“I'd like that,” Anna said, and smiled.


End file.
